The Black Hole We Call “The Humboldt County Human Rights Commission”

I spoke to Humboldt County Human Rights Commission Chairman Jim Glover twice this past week. I called him last Friday to invite him to be a guest on my radio show, Monday Morning Magazine, airing Monday, May 29 from 7-9am on KMUD, Redwood Community Radio (streaming live, and archived, at http://www.kmud.org ). I called because I wanted Jim to talk about the work that the HRC does on behalf of the Board of Supervisors. Having been to a couple of their meetings, I’ve gotten a sense of how the HRC operates, and in one sense, I think they do a great job, for the Board of Supervisors.

On the other hand, I don’t think the HRC does a very good job at all for the people of Humboldt County, and they do a tragic disservice to people who have been victims of human rights abuse. I became aware of the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission after a wave of vigilante violence swept Southern Humboldt last Fall. We had several mysterious deaths. One man was beaten so severely that he spent weeks in the hospital. He will probably never recover completely. Several others were assaulted, robbed and terrorized by vigilantes who, victims allege, identified themselves as “working with” the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department, and handed out eviction notices bearing the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department logo.

Multiple victims came forward with physical evidence, corroborating stories, and names of perpetrators, but deputies in the Garberville Substation of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department refused to take a report from at least one of the victims. Because the perpetrators identified themselves as working with the Sheriff’s Department, and the Sheriff was not at all helpful to the victims, the victims, terrified of reprisal from both local vigilantes and law enforcement, turned instead to the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission.

In retrospect, you would have to say that reporting these crimes to the HRC was a waste of time, at best. “At best,” because these reports did not get shared with the commission for several months, but were almost immediately leaked to 2nd District Supervisor, Estelle Fennell, a clear violation of the confidentiality agreement in which these reports were filed. Nezzie Wade chaired the HRC at the time. She was so shocked and appalled that the HRC’s own rules on handling correspondences had been completely disregarded and that a severe breach of confidence had occurred, that she refused to participate in the HRC any further, and walked out in the middle of the meeting.

In her resignation letter, Nezzie Wade puts it like this, “At the November regular meeting I stated my intention to resign from the commission and left the meeting experiencing great frustration due to the continuing improper conduct of business. I have struggled with my frustration and participation on the commission over this lack of consistency and follow through with protocols, since my appointment to the commission.”

She sites the handling of these reports of vigilante violence in Southern Humboldt specifically: “It was in relationship to the message line calls and email communications retrieved by a commissioner acting as the courier for the commission, that I became extremely inflamed over the course of two consecutive meetings (October and November) in which the reports and communications sent to the commission describing instances of vigilante violence in Southern Humboldt reported to the commission via the phone line and email were not revealed to the commission in a way that allowed the grave situations described in these communications to be disclosed to the commission. A violation of privacy and confidentiality occurred when the commissioner acted upon the information in the communications without authority from the originators or the commission, by disclosing the names of complainants and their issues to parties outside of the commission thus compromising the investigation and the ethical standing of the commission in the community.”

She added, “A real travesty occurred when the actual situations of violence were minimized and reported in their entirety as ‘possible vigilante activity’ rather than actual occurrences with the documentation. The standard forms for intake on the message line were never submitted to the secretary nor email declarations of the victims of vigilante violence as clarified when I requested copies of them from the secretary, received no response prior to the November meeting, and was informed by the secretary that the commission did not have them; thus, no one had access to the information except the commissioner acting as courier at that point, nearly two months beyond the initial reports. It was in this context that I stated my intention to resign which I am now acting upon.”

“All of the above highlights the ongoing lack of following appropriate protocols and my great frustration with the Human Rights Commission. One need only review the meetings, comparing the agendas for each meeting with the post meeting minutes. There are many inconsistencies, and the motions are not recorded or business is conducted without following the required processes. Much is omitted. The commission clearly needs training in how to do business. In addition, the lack of term limits has resulted in an atmosphere in which groupthink is pervasive and new members of the commission are often led into following poor methods of handling commission business;for example, the way in which message line calls are taken in, responded to and reported upon.”

Accompanying her letter of resignation, Nezzie Wade submitted a list of changes to the HRC that she’d like to see implemented. In it, she gets to the heart of why most people think the HRC helps victims of abuse, when in reality, they mostly produce resolution copy for the Board of Supervisors. She begins by quoting the purpose, responsibilities and obligations of the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission, as they appear in the Humboldt County Code:

The purpose of the HRC is to promote tolerance and mutual respect between all persons, and to
promote positive human relationships for the purpose of insuring public peace, health, safety and the
general welfare (Ord. 1023, § 5, 4/22/75; Amended by Ord. No. 2294. 2/25/03)

The responsibilities of the Human Rights Commission are enumerated in Humboldt County Code
Section 228-6 (Ordinances 1023 and 2294) and Article VI of the HRC Bylaws
1. To foster mutual respect and understanding among people, including people subject to prejudice
and discrimination due to race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental
disability, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, civic interest, or any
other factors.
2. To make any studies in any field of human relationships in the County as, in the judgment of the
Commission, will aid in effectuating its general purposes.
3. To inquire into incidents of tension and conflict among or between people, including people
subject to prejudice and discrimination due to race, religious creed, color, national origin,
ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, marital status, gender, sexual orientation,
socioeconomic status, civic interest, or any other factors, and to take action by means of
conciliation, conference and persuasion to alleviate such tensions and conflict.
4. To conduct and recommend any educational programs as, in the judgment of the Commission,
will increase good will among inhabitants of the County and open new opportunities into all
phases of community life for all inhabitants.

The Human Rights Commission shall discharge the following obligations as enumerated in Humboldt
County Code Section 228-7 (Ordinances 1023 and 2294) and Article VII of the HRC Bylaws.
1. To hold conferences and other public meetings in the interest of the constructive resolution of
tensions, prejudice, and discrimination among or between groups of people, including people
subject to prejudice and discrimination due to race, religious creed, color, national origin,
ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, marital status, gender, sexual orientation,
socioeconomic status, civic interest, or any other factors.
2.To issue any publications, recommendations and reports of investigation as in its judgment will
tend to effectuate the purposes of this chapter.
3. To enlist the cooperation and participation of a variety of people, including people subject to
prejudice and discrimination due to race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry,
physical disability, mental disability, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic
status, civic interest, or any other factors, industry and labor organizations, media or mass
communication, fraternal and benevolent associations, and other groups in an educational
campaign devoted to fostering among the diverse groups of the County mutual esteem, justice
and equity.
4. To encourage and stimulate agencies under the jurisdiction of the Board of Supervisors to take
any action as will fulfill the purpose of Humboldt County Code Section 228-6 (Ordinances 1023
and 2294.)
5. To submit an annual report to the Board of Supervisors.

As anyone who reads the Humboldt County Code can see, the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission has a lot of responsibilities and obligations to the people of Humboldt County, even though they only serve an advisory role to the Board of Supervisors, and have no budget. From watching them in action, I can see that they take their role as advisers to the Board of Supervisors very seriously. Conversely, I also see that they fail miserably in their obligations and responsibilities to the people of Humboldt County. Nezzie Wade put it this way:

“While the statement of purpose focuses on the Commission as an organization to promote tolerance and mutual respect between all persons, and to promote positive human relationships for the purpose of
insuring public peace, health, safety and the general welfare, as a human rights organization the HRC
has been unable to truly effect a positive outcome in this regard because it has been absorbed
essentially with promoting ‘nice’ relationships with the BOS and others by keeping any conflicts at a
minimum and marginalized, thus not allowing for the expression of the discord within our community
as presented to the Commission in various ways, highlighted recently by the inappropriate handling of
communications received from members of the Southern Humboldt community regarding several
incidents of vigilante violence towards the homeless, which in no way has served to create an
atmosphere of mutual respect or public peace, safety and the general welfare.”

Basically, we had a series of violent crimes, with victims, evidence and witnesses to back them up, that implicate individuals within the Sheriff’s Department and respected community members, but rather than being investigated by law enforcement and prosecuted by the DA, these cases have been sucked into the black hole we call “the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission,” never to be heard from again, except in leaks back to the perpetrators. These crimes remain uninvestigated, and the perpetrators walk among us today.

Fast-forward to April 25 2017, Chris Weston, a recently appointed HRC Commissioner, called County Council’s office to inquire as to whether a particular email, sent from HRC Chair Jim Glover, to other HRC Commissioners only, was compatible with the Brown Act. Like Nezzie, Chris Weston had become frustrated with the obstructionism, unprofessionalism and lack of protocol on the HRC, and with Chairman Jim Glover in particular. On April 24, Weston talked with Glover about the email in question, and encouraged Glover to report the incident himself, but received no response. So, Commissioner Chris Weston felt obligated to report the email, which he said: “appears to intentionally hide a ‘back room deal’ among HRC members absent public knowledge,” to County Council.

Within two hours of placing that call to County Council’s office, Chris received this text message from Estelle Fennell: “effective today’s date April 25 2017 your participation on the commission is no longer required and I am rescinding your appointment.” Chris Weston was removed from the HRC by Estelle Fennell, less than two hours after reporting a probable Brown Act violation to County Council. It looks suspicious.

Here’s how Chris described it in his letter to District Attorney Maggie Flemming, dated April 28th: “If a commissioner is fired without prior discussion of any concerns or opportunity to rectify any shortcomings, it can easily be construed as unfair and inconsistent with the most rudimentary standards of free speech (First Amendment) due process (Fifth Amendment), powers (Ninth Amendment), Rights (Tenth Amendment) and Equal Protection Under the Law (Fourteenth Amendment) enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. If a commissioner appears to have been fired for inquiring about consistency of certain actions with the Brown Act, it sends a powerful message to all commissioners and society in general that the Brown Act is not seriously the law and flouting the Brown Act is allowed and protected by the powers that be in Humboldt County.”

It just gets darker, and deeper. HRC Chairman Jim Glover called me back on Monday, to decline my invitation to be a guest on the radio show, saying “It wouldn’t be proper” as though he were declining the interview on principle. I called him on it, citing the statement he made to the Times-Standard, asking why KMUD listeners don’t deserve the same consideration. He asked me who else would be on the show. I told him, that Chris Weston, Nezzie Wade and Debra Carey, would also be on the air live with him. At that, Jim Glover resolutely declined my invitation.

I have invited 2nd District Supervisor Estelle Fennell to join us live on the air for this discussion as well. Estelle is a regular, if somewhat erratic guest on Monday Morning Magazine, and I do hope she will join us. After all, these violent crimes happened in her district and she appointed Chris Weston to the HRC to begin with. I’d think she’d be very interested in this, and I know that she could answer some important questions. I hope you’ll join us for an hour long discussion of , from 8-9am Monday, May 29, live on Redwood Community Radio, KMUD.

What’s $1.5 Million Worth to the Emerald Triangle?

With great fanfare, Gov. Jerry Brown, and Assemblyman Jim Wood announced that the Governor’s new state budget allocates 1.5 million dollars of state funds to clean-up environmental damage caused by illegal marijuana grows here in the Emerald Triangle, aka Humboldt, Mendocino and Trinity Counties. Jerry Brown got it right when he said “These illegal grow sites do untold damage to forests and wildlife along the North Coast.”

Anyone who walks in the woods around here can see the legacy of environmental destruction from 40 plus years of illegal marijuana production. These forests are strewn with everything from irrigation line, soil bags and butane canisters, to fertilizers, pesticides and rat poison, to generators, appliances and vehicles, and what you find in these woods will boggle your imagination. I’ve seen trucks, bulldozers and mobile homes, wedged into narrow crevices, on steep slopes, deep in the forest, far from the nearest road. I don’t know how they got there and I have no idea how you would get them out.

In his press release, Assemblyman Wood brought up some of the problems they hope to address with this $1.5 million: Banned pesticides, rat poison, fisheries restoration, chemical ponds, excavation pits, trash, generators, storage tanks, abandoned weapons and illegal clear-cuts that create a fire hazard, “All of this creates a dangerous environment for firefighters, law enforcement and recreational hikers.” Wood’s press release informs us.

True enough, but how much will $1.5 million really do? Mendocino County Supervisor John McCowan told Ashley Tressel of the Ukiah Daily Journal, “It’s a nice start, but it’s really a drop in the bucket.” adding, “Frankly, State agencies have not been doing a good job of preventing environmental damage.” There, Supervisor McCowan refers to the explosion of new, large scale, illegal grows that have proliferated now that Mendocino County has refocused it’s energy away from marijuana eradication, and onto bringing cannabis permit applicants into compliance with state and county regulations.

With the exponential growth in the industry of late, the large scale, illegal clear-cuts, grading and water diversions going on right now, under legalization, may well dwarf the entire environmental legacy of the War on Drugs. Acting Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal said he hoped to use Humboldt County’s share of this money to hire three new deputies to the Humboldt County Marijuana Task Force, presumably to stop the environmental destruction that is going on right now. “We need more resources and more deputy sheriffs dedicated to these illegal grows,” Honsal told Will Houston of the Eureka Times-Standard. However, diverting this money to law-enforcement would leave the environmental legacy of the War on Drugs, the unopened buckets of rat poison, the jugs of used motor oil, the leaky diesel tanks, the dams, the stream diversions and the storage ponds, to wreck havoc on wildlife for decades to come.

It remains unclear how the money will be allocated among the three counties. “These funds will go to our well-established Fisheries Restoration Grant Program which was created to address declining populations of wild salmon and steelhead trout, and deteriorating fish habitat in California,” said California Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton H. Bonham. “The $1.5 million will help us continue to clean up the egregious environmental damage, specifically to California’s waterways, caused by illegal marijuana cultivation sites.”

How far will $1.5 million go? “It can cost up to $15,000 to clean-up and restore each acre damaged,” according to State Senator Bill Monning. I’m quoting the senator from a 2015 LA Times article by Patrick McGreevy about new (at the time), civil penalties that could compel busted growers to cover the cost of the environmental damage they cause. I’m sure the cost to clean-up an acre has not gone down any since then. At that rate, this new, $1.5 million dollar allocation will clean up about 100 acres. 100 acres!

Thanks to the ongoing insanity of the War on Drugs, we have over 8,000 active marijuana grows in Humboldt County alone, not to mention tens of thousands of abandoned grow sites in the forest. Mendocino and Trinity Counties have similar situations. In this vast expanse of rugged, remote, mountainous forest, cops and cultivators have played a high stakes game of cat and mouse for more than forty years, littering some of California’s best remaining wildlife habitat with poison and trash.

Today, highly capitalized interests, run roughshod over regulations and ignore environmental consequences in their quest to corner the market in this newly legalized industry. Meanwhile counties scale-back law enforcement and turn marijuana violations over to code enforcement, who attempt to implement regulations and issue permits. We see unprecedented, and unmitigated environmental damage from marijuana cultivation going on all over the Emerald Triangle right now, but thanks to assemblyman Wood’s “leadership”, the state is going to clean-up 100 acres in three huge counties.

It’s a good thing they put out a press release about this $1.5 million. Otherwise no one would have ever noticed the impact of such a tiny investment spread over such an enormous area.

To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate

I hear a lot of debate about vaccines these days, and I think it’s an interesting topic because of what it reveals about our current zeitgeist. I’ve hesitated to say anything about the subject, because the decision of whether or not to vaccinate children is generally made by parents, and it’s hard for me to think of anyone crazy enough to bring a child into this world as capable of making intelligent decisions. However, I can see why an intelligent parent, if in fact they exist, might reasonably, or even wisely, choose not to have their child immunized as thoroughly as the State of California now demands for all public school students.

I understand the value of vaccines. My dad had polio. He had a withered left leg and walked with a severe limp from the time he was five years old. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Today, they’ve nearly wiped polio out with the Salk and Sabin Vaccines, but still, cases do turn up, especially in densely populated areas with poor sanitation. Polio remains a threat, in part because many people who live in areas still affected by polio, resist immunization themselves, and refuse to immunize their children. I understand how wonderful it would be to live in a world where no one ever got polio again, but I also understand why even the people most effected by polio would vehemently resist taking the vaccine.

Polio is a terrible disease, but polio is not an evil disease. My dad got polio because he grew up in Philadelphia, trapped in a maze of concrete, teeming with malnourished, alcoholic humans, choked with soot, sewage and industrial waste. My dad got sick because of the wretched conditions he endured as a child. Instead of making life better for children, the Salk Vaccine made it possible for more children to endure and survive such horrid conditions. That’s what vaccines do. Vaccines allow people to survive in unhealthy conditions, and as conditions deteriorate, we require more and more vaccines to endure them.

We use vaccines to override nature’s population control functions. Meanwhile, overpopulation remains the biggest threat to life on Earth and the leading cause of poverty and human suffering. While vaccines save lives, they don’t make life better, and they don’t lead to a brighter future. Also, the risk, benefit analysis of all vaccines is not the same. Your veterinarian will tell you that before your doctor will, but it’s true. I caught mumps, measles and chicken pox in public school, along with all of my class mates, and we all survived. Not every vaccine fights a disease as terrible as polio or small pox, and not every vaccine is as effective as the Salk vaccine, but every vaccine has it’s own distinct list of side-effects and interactions.

I don’t want to debate the science of vaccines, because the people who believe in Science, are eager to bludgeon people with it. In truth, I think the difference between the pro-vaccination and anti-vaccination camps has more to do with perspective and values than it does with facts and science. I think it’s an issue upon which reasonable people can disagree, and where we disagree, says a lot about where we are, as a culture.

As science has ascended to the status of religion in our culture, it is not enough for science to describe our world to us. Science needs to inspire us with the promise of a brighter future, and save us from impending doom. Science needed a mythology, and vaccines have become a critical part of the mythology behind Science, the religion. Here’s how the story goes:

Through vaccines, Science has saved millions of lives. Small pox, rabies, polio, tuberculosis, these diseases plagued mankind before the advent of Science, but once scientists developed vaccines for these diseases, people stopped dying from them. Fewer people dying means more lives saved. The mathematical calculation of how many lives vaccines have saved is a critical component to the mythology of this new religion.

This calculation must be unassailable in it’s methodology, and honest about it’s margin of error, and it must show that vaccines have saved millions of lives, and the number of lives saved by vaccines must continue to rise. Science needs to save a lot of lives with vaccines, because from time to time, science kills and maims a lot of people. From thalidomide babies, surgical accidents and the known side-effects of prescribed medications, to DDT, Love Canal, and Fukushima, science has killed and maimed a whole lot of people. For Science to serve as our religion, the number of lives destroyed by science must seem insignificant compared to the number of lives it has saved, and giving someone a vaccine is about the cheapest and easiest way to “save” someone that Science can get.

From another, equally scientific, perspective, one may ask: In a world where a hundred or more species of plant and animal go extinct every day, why should we care so much about saving human lives? Why should we support and participate in these efforts to override nature’s population control systems when it inevitably leads to a lower quality of life, and more environmental destruction? Maybe the better world you envision for your child is not one which hosts the largest possible human population. You may, quite reasonably, feel that what’s best for your child’s future is not what the Church of Science demands of you.

It’s not that people don’t believe the statistics, or understand the concept. I think they do understand. They understand that technological fixes, like vaccines, usually cover up, and spawn bigger problems than they solve. People have seen enough to know that science doesn’t make life better. People have seen enough of science to recognize the pattern that starts with a great discovery, followed by promises of a brighter future, succeeded by “God help us. What have we done?” I think we have entered an age where people regret science.

The anti-vaccination movement tells me that death and disease no longer frighten us as much as the horrors unleashed by science, and that people no longer believe that Science will bring them a better tomorrow. People have learned to mistrust Science, not because of superstition, or lack of understanding, but because of experience. We’ve seen enough of Science to recognize it for what it is, and now that we understand science, we realize that we’d better trust nature.

I Didn’t March for Science

A couple of weeks ago they held the first national March for Science. I love science, and I have a deep appreciation for science and scientific inquiry. I don’t trust scientists, however, and I’m very suspicious of their political agenda, so I did not feel inclined to join them in this demonstration. For as much as I love science, I don’t worship it. In fact, I think it’s kind of a bad cultural habit, but it’s one I picked up early, so I try to make the most of it.

I understand the science behind the Climate Crisis, and I know why ecologists say we have entered the sixth great extinction event in the history of life on Earth. I appreciate that many scientists recognize the grave threat we face from these crises, and I know that they hope to raise awareness about why we should pay attention to this kind of science, but I also know that scientists led us down this road to ruin in the first place, and their siren song continues to seduce us at our peril.

A lot of people tell me that they think science has made us smarter, and that the technology it spawned has made life better, but they could hardly be more wrong. Quite the opposite, in fact. Science may have changed our cultural mythology, but it has failed to reform our culture in any significant way. Meanwhile, technology has unleashed the deadliest holocaust on planet Earth since an asteroid strike wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That’s what science tells us about science and technology.

The objective evidence gathered in the field of ecology should disabuse us of any delusions of grandeur we derive from the mental masturbation we call quantum mechanics and theoretical physics. According to the World Wildlife Federation’s Living Planet Report of 2016, global wildlife populations, declined by 58% between 1970 and 2012, due primarily to human activity. That means there are less than half as many wild animals on Earth today, as there were on the first Earth Day. Science and technology had a large part in making these numbers a reality. Does that sound smart? Does that sound like an improvement?

Far from an intellectual advance, science has merely replaced one ludicrous myth with another. We replaced the myth of an omnipotent deity who created the world and molded humanity in his own image with the myth of a giant bomb that exploded out of nothing. They’re both stupid, and they’re both wrong and neither of these myths have made us any smarter. We’ve merely replaced the guys in monasteries who wore robes and studied ancient texts with guys in universities who wear lab-coats and peer into microscopes. Beneath them both lies the same pathological, ecocidal culture we call “civilization.” Instead of bestowing wisdom, science usurped the power of the church, creating a new religion based on the same old stupidity.

Here’s an example that illustrates how scientists dress up the same old medieval religious stupidity in the new clothes of secular science: Darwin theorized, not that we humans descended from apes, but that we are apes, and that we are but one specialized species of animal in a great pantheon of specialists. This, generally accepted, scientific theory of the origin of species, should have laid to rest the religious idea that God made man in his own image, and blown that “dominion” shit right out of the water, but these Medieval ideas remain as strong as ever, especially among scientists, because universities continue to teach scientists to view human beings as the only intelligent species on planet Earth, and the only ones capable of determining our own destiny. Most scientists still presume the superiority of the human intellect, and believe that the millions of other, “inferior,” species upon this planet exist purely for our benefit, to study, displace, or even kill for sport, just because those creatures don’t share our particular specialty. How is that different from any other form of chauvinism?

 

Businessmen and politicians use science in exactly the same way they used religion in medieval times: to control the masses and to give them an advantage in war. Instead of buying indulgences, they now invest in clean technology, or hire a panel of experts. Instead of asking the Pope to bless their military campaigns and inspire their troops, the military now pays universities to research and design new weapons, including psychological ones.

Both scientists and the clergy gained power over the masses by performing magic tricks, and promising salvation. Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, while scientists point to “Trinity,” the first detonation of a nuclear bomb. Christianity promises life after death. Science promises a brighter future through technology.

The fact that we still fall for this BS, even though industrial technology invariably creates much bigger problems than it solves, demonstrates our willful ignorance and cultural intransigence. In reality, we’re no closer to understanding how the universe works, today, than we were 500 years ago, or even five thousand years ago, and modern Americans are probably the stupidest creatures to ever walk the face of the Earth, thanks largely to science and technology.

When you consider science from the perspective of how it has affected our culture, I hardly see science as an improvement over religion. Trading religion for science is kind of like trading The New Yorker for Penthouse. Religion incorporates literature, poetry, art, music, dance, architecture, and more, into a framework that advises people on how to live and addresses most aspects of human life, whereas science just says, “Show me what I want to see.”

Where religion teaches kindness, charity, decency and humility, science presents endless possibilities, stripped of morals, ethics or aesthetics, like doors that open dark rooms full of unforeseen consequences. Science loves unforeseen consequences. “Unforeseen consequences” is where science gets all of its new material. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of medieval Christianity, but I’d no sooner march for science, in the way it is practiced today, than I would march in support of the Inquisition.

Denial, the Deepest River in SoHum

I talked to Suzelle briefly after the SoHum values conference in Redway a couple of weeks ago. We talked about how much the War on Drugs overshadows everything in this community. We also talked about how much hardship cannabis consumers have endured under prohibition. I said “There’s a debt that’s owed,” meaning that I thought the people who made their fortunes from the injustice of prohibition owe a debt to the people who endured that violence, injustice and discrimination for so long.

I’m sorry I said that. Not that I don’t think there’s truth in it, but the truth is bigger than that, and I think this community has a lot of healing to do, and needs to take care of itself, first. Besides, some people here have consistently worked for legalization. They worked for it, voted for it, and supported it openly, even though it made them more vulnerable, and threatened the income they earned from producing and selling marijuana. I applaud those people. I wish we had more of them, and I certainly don’t fault them. A lot of them are now involved with building a new legal cannabis industry, and I wish them success.

I realize I don’t always say things in the most sensitive way possible, but I want to make myself clear, and I know that I am talking to battle-hardened veterans of the War on Drugs. I care about this community. I live here, and you are my neighbors, and I’m very worried about what I see going on around here.

I’m proud of what this community has accomplished, and I agree with Owl, who spoke up at the conference to say, “We should be proud of our heritage.” We should be proud of what we did to get cannabis to the people, despite the overwhelming violence and oppression, of the War on Drugs, for all those years. That was an absolutely heroic effort, and we should be proud of it. We should also be proud of the work we did to end the War on Drugs. If you haven’t already done some of that work, there’s still time. Go ahead and write a check to NORML. They still need it, and so do you.

The War on Drugs has taken far more than we realize from all of us. There’s a lot of pain behind the windshields of those giant trucks, and there’s not one of us who hasn’t been scarred by it, even if it’s only by the fact that we’ve become so dependent on it, economically, as a community. We’ve become so economically dependent on it that we just can’t face life without it. We’re terrified of the very idea of it, and it’s the very last thing we want to think about. Since we’re the kind of people who prefer to do things, rather than think about them, we just keep doing our thing and try not to think about it.

We’re caught between two gorgons. On one side, we have the awful horror of the War on Drugs, in which we were heroes, but on which we’ve come to depend. On the other side, we can’t bear the horror of life in Humboldt County without the windfall black-market profits the War on Drugs brings. We just can’t face reality. Instead, we live in denial.

We cope by living in our own delusion and concocting a mythology that has come completely unhinged from reality. By now, I’m sure I’ve written enough about this cultural schizophrenia to fill a book, but here it is in a nutshell. Here, in our denial, behind the Redwood Curtain, we hide within our tidy wholesome mythology of “Mom and Pop,” “back-to-the-land” growers, growing superior, world renowned marijuana of unapproachable quality by practicing impeccable watershed stewardship and sustainable, all organic, biodynamic, permaculture farming practices.

Meanwhile, back in reality, Google Earth shows a vast network of clear-cuts, garbage dumps and stream diversions connected by a million miles of quad trails and illegal roads. Like the original Emerald City in The Wizard of OZ, what goes on here only looks good if you wear the special sunglasses that make the grime of the black-market sparkle like gemstones. Everything is beautiful here in paradise, just don’t take off those special glasses.

 

In our mythological future, this area will become recognized as the best place in the world to grow cannabis, and we will grow pot of such superior quality, that most cannabis consumers, being discerning, cultured people of considerable means, will insist that only Humboldt grown cannabis can satisfy their palette, and they will happily pay a premium for it. Besides, the black market will persist indefinitely because people would rather buy their weed from a drug-dealer, than pick it up at the supermarket. In this mythology, we can all just keep doing what we are doing, and do more of it than ever.

While it is true that the cannabis industry is exploding right now, and some people are going to make HUGE amounts of money from it, everything about this industry is changing incredibly fast. Within this crucible, profit margins will shrink until competition gives way to consolidation. In this process, even if the industry settles here, most of Humboldt County’s growers will get squeezed out of the business. That’s the reality that’s coming down the pike with legalization.

The pot business has always been a game for gamblers. I know that nobody really feels much sympathy for drug dealers squeezed out of the black-market, and I doubt anyone will start a charity for them anytime soon, but we are talking about most of our community now. Most of the people we know, most of the people who were born and raised here, and most of the people who built this community and make it unique, will be squeezed out of the marijuana industry, including all of the bright, imaginative and creative people who have come to rely on it to support their creativity.

Most of our community will be squeezed-out of the marijuana industry by greedy, ruthless business-people with major capital behind them. It is already well underway. That’s why we don’t want the marijuana industry in Humboldt County. Large-scale industrial agriculture does not make a good neighbor, nor does it belong on steep slopes in wild habitat. More importantly, it’s not who we are.

We didn’t come here to ruthlessly corner the market of a new industry. We came here to get out of the rat race, to breathe fresh air, hear the birds sing and walk in the woods. We made art. We played music and we told stories. Marijuana reminded us why those things mattered to us, so we made space for them, shared them and celebrated them. Marijuana reminded us why those things mattered, and the War on Drugs reminded us why marijuana mattered, so we learned to grow that too, in secret little patches hidden deep in the forest.

It was risky. You couldn’t trust people who didn’t grow. If you neglected to start seeds, your neighbor might just drop a few seedlings off at your place just to make sure you put a crop in. To be accepted by this community, you practically had to grow, and the stress of it was palpable. You could feel it in town. This was a war zone, and the sound of a helicopter on a hot Summer day still sends most people around here into a panic attack.

We lost a lot of great people in the War on Drugs. A lot of them got busted, some more than once. A lot of people turned to alcohol and other drugs to deal with the stress, some artists more or less abandoned their art, because weed money came so much easier. The black-market had a corrosive effect on the community, and the longer it continued, the more this place attracted a criminal element motivated by greed. Meanwhile, it took almost 40 years for the people to rise up and demand an end to Cannabis prohibition, and the government fought the people at every turn. Today, cannabis is still only legal in states where voters have the power of referendum.

Here, we have so thoroughly internalized the oppression of the War on Drugs that it has blinded us to our options, and stunted our economic diversity. As we move towards legalization, and the price of pot continues to slide, people just keep producing more weed. The art, music, stories, and community celebration gets squeezed-out, replaced with more boring hard work, the rat race, and Netflix by satellite. Nobody’s got time to walk in the forest anymore. They’ve got tarps to pull, soil to move and plants to tend. Prohibition squeezed this community into the marijuana industry, and now the marijuana industry is squeezing the life out of this community. That’s just part of what the War on Drugs has done to us, but the war is far from over for us.

The War on Drugs has affected how we think and how we see the world, and our collective schizophrenia is affecting our ability to make realistic decisions and plan for the future. Consequently, the impacts of the War on Drugs will be felt here for generations to come. While cannabis consumers have paid an enormous price in the War on Drugs, having paid it honestly, they will heal more quickly and recover more completely. For many here, the War on Drugs has crippled them, because they can’t even imagine another way of living, and it has become central to their identity. We face serious challenges, as a community, as we move towards legalization, but to face those challenges, we must first face reality.